Battle of the Maknaes: Round One (Male Edition)

Every once in a while, we love gathering up members of different idol groups and tossing them into a tournament arena so you can rank who’s the best of the best. So far, you’ve voted for the best idol dancer, vocalist, and rapper, and now, for something just a tad unconventional… introducing the Battle of the Maknaes, where you can decide K-pop Best Maknae!

In case you didn’t know who maknaes are, here’s a handy-dandy dictionary definition that’s, admit it, more or less the truth:

We’ve gathered up some of your favorite maknaes, proudly representing their 64 respective idol groups. This first round is an elimination round separated by gender, where you’ll have to weed the contestants down to just 50%, passing 16 of your favorites to Round Two. Confused? We got you! Check out the timeline of the battles taking place in each round, with each idol member represented by black dots:

And now, here’s the fun part! After Round One, aka this round, you can hop on to social media and use hashtags to choose your favorites moving on to the finals. Round Two will run for 48 hours on social media ONLY (that’s right, exactly TWO DAYS), from September 9 at 8PM KST to September 11 8PM KST, and fans who participate in social voting will be automatically entered to win signed CDs and other goodies! Here’s the catch: to maintain fairness of the competition, we will be revealing the exact hashtags for each of the 16 remaining artists at exactly September 9 at 8PM KST, so be sure to stay tuned to the Soompi page when social voting starts!

Who will reign supreme to take the “Best Maknae” crown? You decide! From now until September 8, 8AM KST, vote in Round One of our “Battle of the Maknaes!” Pro-tip: You can vote once every hour, so be sure to get those votes in!

Let the battle begin – flip through the pages below to cast your votes in each respective division.

NOTE: This page is only for the guys of the competition. Click the button below to get to the ladies!

We’re making a slight adjustment to the Males Edition of this battle! (Females will not be affected). B.A.P‘s Zelo somehow got left out of our list, and we love Zelo (Soompi’s founder Soomp also yelled at us for leaving out her fave), so we will be implementing a surprise round during the social voting of Round 2! NOTE: This new addition will NOT affect any of the current matchups of Round One.

During Round 2, after 16 idols move on from Round 1, we will be holding a simultaneous “Dark Horse” round that will pit Zelo against one person the Soompi Team chooses to “Staff Save.” In other words, 18 idols will now be participating in Round 2, 16 of which are winners from these current matchups, along with Zelo and one staff save. They will still be competing for the eight spots in Round 4, however, as the rest of the tournament format will not be changing.

UPDATE 9/8:

Round One is officially OVER! Thank you to everyone who voted, and stay tuned to September 9, at 8PM KST for a list of winners and how you can vote in Round Two, social voting!